Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Status Reports

Status: Summary (2018 - March)

This is a summary report with links to my various on-going projects. Detailed progress is shown on the sub-reports.

This summary report should highlight whether my focus has become unbalanced or otherwise inappropriate to the achievement of my major goals.

As these reports are rather a pain to generate, I now produce them quarterly, rather than monthly.

Projects in Progress

I have ten projects on which I would like to spend my time, which is too many. I currently split them into three groups.

The first two groups always have effort planned, but the final group in general does not.

The first group relates to my primary (project) life-goals; the second relates to lesser things I really want to address; the final group1 relates to those I’d like to look into if I get ahead on the other projects.

Primary Projects

Research into Personal Identity2. This is the subject that ought to grab most of my attention, as it is the topic of my yet-to-be-completed PhD. I need to achieve something in philosophy, as this is the only one of my endeavours that promises a professional outcome (in the sense of being one of more than merely personal interest).

Development of Web-tools3. This project is intended to assist with the prosecution of philosophical research. It is fundamentally an enabling project, though one I hope will have general metaphilosophical implications. The other two projects in this group are test cases of the method, as well as worthwhile studies in their own right.

Studies in the Philosophy of Religion4. On and off, this represents the main preoccupation of my adult life (work and family aside). Eventually, I intend to follow up in some detail interesting topics from the Philosophy of Religion module from the MA in Philosophy and Religion at Heythrop College, London University that I tasted at the end of 2010. However, at the moment I’m preoccupied with reviewing a soon-to-be published book attempting to refute Jesus’s resurrection.

Secondary Projects

Music5: Improve my competence as an oboist, and learn the piano. I have recommenced regular oboe-practice in my new den, and have purchased an electronic piano – also installed therein – so hopefully some progress will be made on piano-playing.

Mathematics8: Revive / improve my mathematical competence with a view to the use of mathematics as a tool in my various other projects. Also – now that I’m 64 – useful for keeping various bits of my brain functioning9.

HiQ10: Enjoy and contribute to the intellectual society of ISPE and Mensa (mostly in abeyance, though I’ve re-revived my membership of ISPE).

Bridge11: I still want to become an expert player but have recognised that this isn’t going to happen without it becoming my main priority and, since I need to respect the fact that I’m getting older and need to progress my philosophical endeavours while I can, I’ve abandoned this project for the time being.

Chess12: Improve my standard of play so I can perform acceptably in the Essex, London, Middlesex … leagues (whenever I’m ready).

These projects are (approximately, in their respective groups) in order of decreasing priority, yet in practise the amount of effort expended on them has failed to respect this. My intention was always to restrict the effort on Bridge, and focus on Personal Identity. Historically, this resolve has seldom come to anything, and while I now believe that for me Bridge is sufficiently enjoyable and relaxing to be self-justifying, I’ve decided to axe it completely for the next few years.

Unfortunately, time isn’t available at the moment – given my other commitments – to spend as much time on Philosophy of Religion as I would like. I have cut it back to 2 hours a week.

I re-joined ISPE13 in 2017 and have renewed my membership for 2018, but can spare little scheduled time for taking part.

I have ignored the various infrastructural elements of my life in these reports – in particular family life, household management, general reading, culture, current affairs, walking the dog and such like. Things were rather fraught in 1Q18. Thomas – our first grandchild – arrived on 4th February 2018. And the house is falling down14 and we’ve had three major companies15 reviewing what needs to be done, but no decisions yet. Finally, Henry the dog suffered from what looked like dysentery and was on a drip in doggie hospital for a couple of days. All very distracting.

This report and the sub-reports obtained by following the links immediately above show the current status. The report headings show the period the reports are for. Earlier reports can be found by following the links in the “Table of Previous Versions of this Note” further down this report, or in the sub-reports.

Planning and Actuals

Overall, I again worked hard but the distractions above, and the over-ambitious plan, meant that “actual versus plan” was a mere 84% QTD, 91% YTD – where the year is the 2017/18 academic year commencing in October 2017.

The balance of the various projects against plan was much as I’d like, with the minor projects losing out.

The tables of actual versus plan are on separate pages, accessible below:-

For detailed breakdowns of time spent this year, by month and by study location, follow this link16.

For a report by sub-project of time expended since my records began, follow this link17.

For tables of Actual versus Plan, together with the high-level plan for the next quarter, see this page18.

The planned effort for my Thesis is now as it ought to be, though less than needed, but may be approximately what I can achieve. It represents the amount of time that I’d need to spend if I were pursuing my research part-time at Birkbeck – which would be something like 5 hours / day, 5 days a week – and then fit other projects around it.

I’ve reduced the weekly total planned to 49 hours19. This will allow for known disruptions – the house repairs, new grandson & a week’s holiday in Otranto, Italy – and unknown issues no doubt about to arise!

I’ve decided to try to play the oboe properly, and improve my general musicianship but have reduced my Music allowance back to 7 hours / week20.

The six “priority 3” projects miss out this time round, though I hope to spend some “overtime” on Languages – Italian in preparation for the holiday.

As these reports are now quarterly, at best, I’m including a link to a brief uncommented list23 of what I’ve been working on since the last report (ie. this one). It is generated automatically from my time-recording system.

Its main utility (to me, at any rate) is as a quick jumping-off point for the various writings in progress or recently completed.

Enable the re-use of Footnotes in the same Note38. Currently, they appear twice.

Infrastructure

Migration of Website from UKServers to Namesco. Test out.

Notes

Allow the option to concatenate Notes in the Printed version (ie. linearly embed them essay-style), rather than treating the hyperlinks as footnotes – but still keep the hyperlink & cross-referencing in place.

For use as "disclaimers" - eg. for "Plug Notes".

For Thesis / essays: the difficulty here is the need for linking passages to make the text run smoothly.

Coxes Farm hails from the 16th century, or possibly earlier, and is very “wonky”, requiring continual maintenance.

In December 2017, a base to roof crack appeared in the render at the front. It’s been stable since then, with a temporary mastic repair, but is most likely symptomatic of weakness in a supporting post on account of ingress of water.